


Alec, Simon, a Vampire's kiss, but no Homo.

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Meta crossposts [3]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Book 6: City of Heavenly Fire, Gen, Meta, Queerphobia, Queerphobic tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-05-31 07:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6461707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I take a look at the part of COHF where Simon bit Alec and try to explain why it's not actually as funny as people seemed to think back when it came out. Crosspost from my tumblr, with the original post <a href="http://terresdebrume.tumblr.com/post/100836203651/alec-simon-a-vampires-kiss-but-no-homo">here</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Alec, Simon, a Vampire's kiss, but no Homo.

So this meta (like most of my personal meta, tbh) was lost with my previous blog, and I’ve been thinking about it on and off since then. This is my attempt at putting all of this into a semi-articulated post.

See, if you don’t understand why I hate the biting scene between Alec and Simon in COHF all you have to do is look at the history of how a vampire’s bite is portrayed in most of Vampire works ( _Interview with the Vampire_ is a prime example tbh).

The Vampire’s kiss has long been portrayed as a metaphor for sex (at best) or rape (at worse) and th _a_ t’s true for _The Mortal Instruments_ , too. So when Simon goes to bite Alec, however unwilling he may be (and that’s a whole other ketle in itself) the act is automatically placed into the realm of the erotic –and, because these are two guys, the realm of the  _homo_ erotic.

Given this, the very fact that Alec gets mocked for being uncomfortable with the whole thing is annoying in and of itself because it implies, as readinwithavengeance (and, hopefully, several others) pointed out, that gay men have to automatically be comfortable with every homoerotic act they may be confronted to. Not only this, but then we have this exchange:

> _“I just want you to know,” Alec said as he held his wrist out, “that I realize that to you vampires this feeding business sometimes equals sexy times.”_  
>  _Simon’s eyes widened._  
>  _“My sister may have told me more than I wanted to know,” Alec admitted. “Anyway, my point is that I am not attracted to you in the slightest.”_  
>  _“Right,” Simon said, and took Alec’s hand. He tried for a brotherly sort of grasp, but it didn’t quite work, considering that he had to bend Alec’s hand back to bare the vulnerable part of his wrist. “Well, you don’t ring my bells either, so I guess we’re even. Although, you could have faked it for five—”_  
>  _“No, I couldn’t,” Alec said. “I hate it when straight guys think all gay guys are attracted to them. I’m not attracted to every guy any more than you’re attracted to every girl.”_  
>  _Simon took a deep, purposeful breath. It was always a strange feeling, breathing when he didn’t need to, but it was calming. “Alec,” he said. “Chill. I don’t think you’re in love with me. In fact, most of the time I think you hate me.”_

How bad is it when your (token) gay character has to be the one going “no homo”?

Like, I would understand it if Simon had made a “don’t get any idea” joke, but as it is, the series has been blessedly (if unrealistically) devoid of anyone assuming Alec was attracted to them, meaning that the above conversation is completely unprompted and begs the question: _in what world_ does a queer person spontaneously walk up to a straight person and goes “Oh by the way, I’m not attracted to you at all”?

I don’t make it a secret that Alec is my favorite character (Isabelle and Magnus come close seconds) and most of his scenes have me similarly frustrated because as it turns out, his entire character arc revolves around tired queer character tropes. And yes, sure, I’m happy to see a mainstream bestseller with a queer couple in the main cast but the fact remains that for all that Cassandra Clare says she’s queer friendly (which I’m willing to believe tbh) her writing is still _full_ of damaging tropes and instances like the ones above and the result is that, no matter how good her intentions were, her books aren’t all that queer friendly at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Rereading this, I realize it says that Magnus is one of my favorite characters...as of 2016, I can say that he's now among the ones I hate most in this franchise. Things do change, I guess ;)


End file.
